


Until You Come Back Home

by SarcasticallyDead



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel is a Good Friend, Episode: s14e01 Stranger in a Strange Land, Gen, Mary's trying but Sam's too tired right now, Not trying to be Mary critical, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug, Season/Series 14, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, Spoilers, also some milk, so does Dean but that's just kinda assumed at this point, this is my first fic btw so hopefully it's not complete garbage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 21:32:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16292204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarcasticallyDead/pseuds/SarcasticallyDead
Summary: He's driving back from Atlanta when the thought finally hits him.A.K.A an exploration of Sam's inner workings throughout the premierA.K.A I wanted to write a fic but didn't want to come up with any plot





	Until You Come Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the plot featured in this fic, just the, idk what you call it, word choice, I guess??
> 
> Rated M for minor cursing cause I'm paranoid
> 
> This is my first ever fanfic I've written so please give me some feedback! Thank you!

                 He’s driving back from Atlanta when the thought finally hits him.

_We might never find him._

                 It’s not like he wasn’t painfully aware of it before, like the notion hasn’t been manifesting itself in an ever-present warmth behind his eyelids for the past three weeks, weighing like an anchor on his shoulders and on his mind. But it is the first time that he’s let his guard down enough for it to sneak past his defenses, to form into a full statement, his only companion in the miles he knows he has left to reach the Bunker. He gets hit with a bout of nausea then, so strong that he feels his grip on the wheel slacken for a fraction of a second longer than acceptable. He’s serving, and in that single moment of adrenaline and sleep-deprived panic, all he can think is, _what if I let go?_

                . . . . .

                Not a minute back and everyone’s already looking to him, looking for instructions he wishes he could tell them he didn’t have. There used to be a time when he would open the Bunker door and feel the tension leave him, the promise of the wards and the tangible presence of his brother providing a safe comfort he had only ever felt when it had been just them and Baby. He guesses to anyone else the quiet, empty vastness of the Bunker would have been unsettling, but to him, seclusion had always been a bit of a sanctuary. As it was, no one could mistake the bustle of the Bunker as any kind of seclusion or sanctuary, not anymore. Everywhere he turned there were relatively unfamiliar faces, using his and Dean’s (and often Cas’) things like they’d owned them, like they had any idea what these touches of domesticity had meant to two beaten down brothers who had ever only had themselves and a car to make a home out of. It had been his idea to bring the apocalypse world hunters to their world, and he doesn’t regret it, doesn’t regret saving them; but, that doesn’t stop him feeling invaded, possessive and jealous of this unspoken sacred thing that had been intruded on.

                Mom is there, then, eyes full of concern he turns his head so he doesn’t have to face, knowing if she sees his eyes she’ll be undeterrable and also knowing that if that happens, he’ll either be too tired to argue or so far at the end of his rope that he’ll snap. He knows she means well; hell, he knows she’s right. But in his darkest moments, he finds himself wanting to scream at her, to tell her that she has no right to claim that everything will be alright, to worry about them like she knows anything about them, when she left them at every turn. God, he knows she’s doing the best she can, knows it would’ve been too much to expect her to be fine with being brought back to a world that was as unfamiliar to her as an alternate universe. Even so, a part of him, a cruel selfish part, wishes he didn’t have to understand, wishes he could feign ignorance and forget logic, hide behind his hurt and simply refuse to forgive. He wants to for once be able to say, ‘I don’t care about the hard rock or the wet marshes. I don’t care about the reasons. You hurt me and nothing you do will change that.’

                But then she’s taking his hand and there’s still a concern in her eyes, but there’s also a plead there too. This is her way of coping, and this is his mom, and she is here, and he knows there’s no other option but to reassure her with confidence he doesn’t have.

                . . . . .

                Jack is another story. Sam knows he’s neglecting him, has been since That Night. Not on purpose, in fact, Jack was one of the only people right then who he could stand being around, whose simple presence didn’t feel suffocating. But he also knows that he can’t focus on Jack right now, can’t give him the attention that he needs. Jack losing his powers is devastating to him and if Sam were to take up the responsibility of helping him, that would just be more time spent where Dean is a prisoner in his own body and Sam has chosen someone else to prioritize over him.

               So, he doesn’t.

               He tells mom and Bobby to keep an eye on him, to help him learn some semblance of normalcy; knows Cas will. He sees the parallels between himself and his father, delegating the task of loving a child to those less equipped and, for a moment, he hates himself. But he also knows that finding Dean was never going to be put on the backburner for anything or anyone, even a kid who had inadvertently become a son to him. He gives a motivational speech they both know isn’t going to help anyone and promises himself that once Dean is back, he’ll do anything to fix this new rift.

                . . . . .

                Nick’s situation was a whole other nightmare, altogether. Checking up on him every day, tending to his wounds, it’s taking a toll on Sam that he knows he’s not going to know the full extent of until it’s too late. That night, soon after Michael had taken off with Dean, Sam and Jack had watched as life had returned to Lucifer’s face and he began to scream in terror at seemingly nothing. Panic and despair had seized him, then, at the thought that it had all been for naught, that Dean had sacrificed himself just for Lucifer to come back once again. It had only taken a few moments to realize that this pathetic, broken man was nothing like Lucifer.

                That night, they’d taken him back to the Bunker and put him in their strongest warded room. And every day since, Sam had gone into that room, felt the burst of adrenaline and terror of that first moment of seeing Nick’s face, pushed it down, and asked him the same questions while he treated his wound. It was a slow, simmering kind of torture, having to look into his abuser’s eyes and comfort him. But he also knew that it was necessary. Nick wasn’t to blame for this, he hadn’t been the one to skin him alive every day for a century, to tear his limbs from him and dance around with them, mocking his agony all the while simultaneously torturing him in even more creative ways.

                He wasn’t the one who poured gasoline on the last shreds of his sanity and laughed as they burned.

                In fact, Nick was one of Lucifer’s worst victims, just like him. He was probably one of the only people who could understand what being a meat suit to the Devil was like, what being locked in a cage in the deepest pits of Hell really means. But it _was_ his face and his hands and it _was_ his voice and try as Sam might, there is no way to logic that kind of trauma away.

                No one else wanted to face Nick, except sometimes Cas, but Cas was away following inevitably dead-end leads more often than not these days. Mom was trying but the most she could do was check to see if he had woken up yet and then tell Sam, claiming she could barely look at him. The first few times establishing this routine he had been angry and indignant as to how they expect _him_ to be fine with this when they, who had barely spent any time with Lucifer and at his weakest, were too wary. After a while, though, he was resigned. He was the leader here, whether he liked it or not, and at the end of the day, the responsibility fell to him.

                Fate had been continually declaring Lucifer Sam’s cross to bear since before he was born and however many times they screamed Team Free Will, it was clear that there are just some things that you can’t outrun.

                . . . . .

               Getting the call that Cas is being held hostage should be his final straw, but it only serves to make him angry. Who the hell does this discount Crowley think he is, just waltzing in and hurting Cas like he has any control, like they haven’t already shown every single black-eyed freak from accounting with a newfound taste for power what they’d do to someone who hurts their family. He’s not too afraid, he knows Cas will be fine, but he is incredibly annoyed, and that is a welcome change from the monotonous cycle of hopelessness and fear and exhaustion of these past three weeks. This is something he has a control over, an enemy he can reach and a friend he can save.

                He doesn’t waste a second.        

                . . . . .

                For a moment there, he actually thinks he’s going to die.

                Then he thinks about how he brought them all here, Jack and Mom and Bobby and Maggie, the only people left close to him here that he loves. About how he might not have sent Cas to this trap personally, but he’d be failing him all the same. Realizes that if he dies, then they’re all going to die too. That if they’re all gone, then nobody’s going to be left to give a damn about what happens to Dean.

                He’d felt the same thing back when he’d taken back control on that fateful day in Stull Cemetery, the day that he’d decided that Heaven and Hell could go screw themselves; the day that he’d sacrificed himself for Earth ( _for his brother_ , something deep in his consciousness corrects). It’s only a fraction of that feeling now, without the weight of The Apocalypse bearing down on him, but it’s more than enough for Sam to push back against Kip and kill him in a move that takes no more than a second.

                Suddenly, he’s had enough of this. Of this song and dance that they’ve been repeating for years now, confronting demons and killing them just in the nick of time to not be killed, getting out with nothing more than a few bruises and another traumatic memory, leaving behind the poor scorched victims of whichever no-name demon decided he wanted something from them and was out of his depth, this time. He’s disgusted with how irrelevant this all is, and he’s sick of wasting time. He stands to his full height, lets every last drop of _I’m done_ seep from his voice, and orders, no, _dares_ the remaining demons to go through him.

                They run, tails between their legs, and it’s the same kind of power he felt back when he was drinking demon blood. When he still thought volunteering to be the enemy to fight the enemy was noble instead of realizing it to be the guilty actions of a boy too broken to look for the line between right and wrong. 20-20, he knows. This time, though, the power is all him--it’s pure and raw.

                He doesn’t try to fight the satisfaction flowing through him.

                . . . . .

                Ketch’s news was just another disappointment in a long, rapidly expanding list, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. There’s no other option but for them to find Dean ( _alive or dead,_ his mind supplies unhelpfully), and one of these days one of their leads is going to hit the mark, no matter how long it takes.

                Cas sits down and when he asks him if he’s okay he finds himself unable and unwilling to lie. Mary might be their mom, but in the grand scheme of things, she barely knows them, and he doesn’t feel obligated to bear his soul to her. Cas, though, Cas had been with them for a long time, seen them at their worst. Sure, he had made mistakes, they all had, but at the end of the day, he always came to his senses and he always ended up right back by their side. It was a disservice to consider him anything other than family, these days.

                He had been a life-saver throughout this whole ordeal, someone Sam knew he didn’t have to be strong for, the one who understood him most without Dean there. Confessing that he was willing to do anything, work with anyone, to save Dean, was an unspoken fact but, still, a burden off his shoulders, too. If it had been anyone else, they may have been concerned a little, maybe even horrified at the implications, but not Cas. No, Cas understood, had seen first-hand what that meant and agreed with it, shared the sentiment, even.

                The resounding silence was comfortable, an unspoken promise filling the air with possible consequences that they were more than willing to face.      

                . . . . .

                Sister Jo calls, and for the first time in these past hellish weeks, he feels himself fill with pure, fragile hope. It’s as if the knowledge that Dean isn’t dead awakens something in him, a gravitational pull towards his brother he’d never realized he’d had until he’d lost it and got it back again.

                He lets himself savor this one moment, this small but monumentally important victory. Basks in the relief he’d been deep down convinced he’d never feel again.

                Then, he’s out the door to prepare the cavalry.

                To bring his brother home.


End file.
